Welcome back to our โMeet the Candidatesโ series, where we ask every supervisorial hopeful in the November 2024 election one question each week. Candidates are asked to answer questions on policy, ideology and more in 100 words or fewer.
Answers are being published individually each week, but we are also archiving the weekly series here.
In terms of political happenings this week in the district, District 9 candidate Jackie Fielder will host an office-opening party at 3389 26th St. on Saturday, May 18, at 10 a.m., and the Bernal Heights Democratic Club will have its endorsement meeting on Thursday, May 16, at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center at 515 Cortland Ave. at 7 p.m.
If you know of other political events, let me know and I will add them to the post.
I will be at El Cafetazo at 3087 16th St, on Thursday, May 23, at 11 a.m. to say hello and talk about the district,ย or you can email me at oscar.palma@missionlocal.com.
This week’s question: Do you support the continued placement of planters in the district?
Jaime Gutierrez
- Job: Transit supervisor for SFMTA/Muni
- Age: 57
- Residency: Tenant, born in District 9 in 1967 and, except for three years spent in the Army, has resided here ever since
- Transportation: Bike
- Education: U.S. Army, City College of San Francisco, University of California, Berkeley
- Languages: English and Spanish
I support planters on peopleโs properties, if they follow all permitting guidelines. I live in a Mission neighborhood back alley. Thereโs no room to place planters. This forces me to engage unhoused or unstable people, where I must call 311 or 911 to address the issue. This happens about once or twice a month. We also need to appreciate that planters are a benign solution that prevents vigilantism. The last thing we want are residents becoming more enraged with the apparent snail pace of solutions for the unhoused to the tune of nearly one billion dollars per year!
Endorsed by: Transportation Workers Union Local 200 … read more here
Julian Bermudez
- Job: Works in and directs his family business, Rancho Grande Appliance
- Age: 27
- Residency: Born San Francisco in 1996, raised on and off in District 9 until he left for college in 2015, then the army in 2019 and now back, living in the Mission
- Transportation: Carpool/catch a ride
- Education: City College of San Francisco, Chico State University.
- Languages: English and Spanish
No, I don’t, but I did before. I reconsidered after canvassing many neighborhoods in the city where they are located. Most of them have been left neglected, vandalized, and filled with garbage and just plain dirt. They also take a considerable amount of space. If community members are determined to fill the space, we can at least do so with something valuable to everyone. Shaded benches, water dispensers, garbage cans, and even a bike rack are just a few examples. Hostile architecture inconveniences everyone.
h brown
- Job: Retired special education teacher
- Age: 80
- Residency: Tenant, at current address for nine years, redistricted into District 9 in April 2022
- Transportation: Walking
- Education: Bachelor’s in education and Master’s in Special Education from Clemson University
- Languages: English
No, sidewalks are for walking and pushing baby carriages and for wheelchairs and hopscotch.
The doppelganger question is, ‘where do we put the homeless?’
I’d say public schools are the most intelligent choice.
We’re down enrollment by 8,000, which is also number of homeless.
Lincoln and Harding Golf Courses would make great campgrounds and have the added plus of large parking lots to accommodate motorhomes.
The Treasure Island Project is bankrupt, which frees up another couple of hundred acres.
Or, as most mayoral candidates are proposing, we could put more and more of them in jail.
Stephen Torres
- Job: Bartender at Twin Peaks Tavern, customer service at Flowercraft Nursery and freelance writer
- Age: 46
- Residency: Tenant, lived in District 9 Summer 2001 to Fall 2003, and returned in the Summer 2010
- Transportation: Public
- Education: Moorpark Community College and San Francisco City College as work has permitted
- Languages: English and Spanish
I have long advocated for the greening of our district, increasing its canopy and removing hardscape for aquifer recharge/flood mitigation. Although planters can be utilized to provide beauty or space for micro vegetable gardens, we instead have seen a glut of planters that are often eyesores themselves. They are often unmaintained, end up as repositories for garbage and dead plants, do not offer any of the aforementioned benefits, and serve little other purpose than to make sidewalks uninviting and often impassable. Sidewalks are pedestrian spaces and require intentionality and mindfulness. We can instead green these spaces as buffers from the pollution. Read more.
Endorsed by: Mark Leno, Former State Senator, Aaron Peskin, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Hillary Ronen, Supervisor, District 9 … read more here
Jackie Fielder
- Job: Nonprofit co-director at Stop the Money Pipeline. Former educator at San Francisco State University, co-founder of the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition. Democratic Socialist
- Age: 29
- Residency: Tenant, Lived in District 9 September 2017 to June 2018, October 2019 to August 2020 and April 2021 to present
- Transportation: Public
- Education: Bachelor’s in public policy and master’s in sociology from Stanford University
- Languages: English and Spanish
The city has been pushing homeless people around from district to district for decades, and the planters are obviously not a solution. The city has hundreds of permanent supportive housing units sitting empty. Our system of care for people struggling with mental health, substance use disorder, and homelessness simultaneously simply does not exist. We have a major staffing crisis that has thwarted major progress on these issues. You can read my solutions to these challenges and more at jackieforsf.com/platforms.
Endorsed by: Former State Representative Tom Ammiano, Former D9 Supervisor David Campos, Former Mayor Art Agnos, City College Trustee Vick Chung, D3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin … read more here
Trevor Chandler
- Job: Public school teacher since 2023. Former director of government and public policy at Citizen, a public safety app.
- Age: 37
- Residency: Tenant, living in District 9 since July 2021
- Transportation: Public
- Education: Plymouth State University
- Languages: English
That neighbors feel they need planters to regain control of their sidewalks is an indictment of a failed City Hall approach to safe and clean streets.
In fact, to cover up their own failures, city officials encouraged community organizations to pay for these planters on top of the taxes they’re already paying, and now theyโre telling them to get retroactive permits. What would be a parody anywhere else has become commonplace in City Hall.
For the taxes we pay, District 9 residents deserve a government that actually solves our problems, not one that shoves it all back on us.”
Endorsed by: Latino LGBTQ political organization HONOR PAC, State Senator Scott Wiener, Assembly Member Rick Chavez Zbur, Brownie Mary Democratic Club, Supreme Court Marriage Equality Lead Plaintiff Jim Obergefell … read more here
Roberto Hernandez
- Job: CEO, Cultura y Arte Nativa de Las Americas (CANA).
- Age: 67
- Residency: Homeowner, born in the Mission in June 1956 and has not left
- Transportation: Car and bicycle
- Education: BA in Sociology from University of San Francisco
- Languages: English and Spanish
Planters were placed in response to many Mission residents and businesses owners feeling unsafe from tent encampments on our streets. While I sympathize with their plight, displacing encampments does not address the root of the problem.
Tents on our streets are symptomatic of a much larger crisis, and installing planters is a band-aid. Our unhoused population deserves dignity and long-term solutions. We havenโt built enough affordable housing, and our shelters and navigation centers are full. Iโll champion pathways to permanent housing and wraparound services so sidewalk planters can be used as what theyโre intended for: Greening our city.
Endorsed by: State Treasurer Fiona Ma, Supervisor Myrna Melgar, Supervisor Shamann Walton, State Senator Scott Wiener, BART Director Bevan Dufty … read more here
Michael Petrelis
- Job: AIDS and LGBTQ activist
- Age: No response given
- Residency: Has lived on Clinton Park since May 1996, which became part of District 9 in April 2022
- Transportation: Petrelis asked not to participate in the series
- Education: Petrelis asked not to participate in the series
- Languages: English
Petrelis said he wishes not to participate.
Endorsed by: Not seeking endorsements, and I see much of the endorsement industrial complex as corrupt, rife with payola and favor-trading, and for gotcha responses.
District 9 contributions
Money raised and spent in the District 9 supervisor race
Money raised
Money spent
Jackie Fielder
$31,954
$112,742
Roberto Hernandez
$11,443
$100,577
Trevor Chandler
$72,682
$90,840
Stephen Torres
$13,848
$5,949
Julian Bermudez
$740
Michael Petrelis
$0
Jamie Gutierrez
$0
h Brown
$0
$0
$50,000
$100,000
$150,000
$200,000
Money raised
Money spent
Jackie Fielder
$31,954
$112,742
Roberto Hernandez
$11,443
$100,577
Trevor Chandler
$72,682
$90,840
Stephen Torres
$13,848
$5,949
Julian Bermudez
$740
Michael Petrelis
$0
Jamie Gutierrez
$0
h Brown
$0
$0
$50K
$100K
$150K
$200K
Source: San Francisco Ethics Commission, as of April 3, 2024. Chart by Junyao Yang.
Candidates are rotated alphabetically. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at oscar.palma@missionlocal.com
Read the rest of the District 9 questions here, and the entire โMeet the Candidatesโ series here.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
“Welcome to Behlen Country!”
These ugly “planters” are tubs for watering livestock, and a quick search online shows that on sale, just one of them costs about $150.
Yeehaw!
What we need are open, green spaces with accessories that improve everyone’s quality of life.
While housing is still harm reduction for folks that do not have otherwise have a place to sleep, we should aspire to improve our sidewalks in ways that make them the true community asset they should be — spaces that are throughways and positively affect our collective mental health. Planter barricades do the opposite.
Join the movement here: https://gardensnotbarricades.com/